6. The WeST Wing

I should loathe The West Wing, a sort of soap opera about Amer­i­can ul­tra-lib­er­als try­ing to take over the world. It might as well be called ‘The Left Wing’ – it’s ob­vi­ously the Clin­ton pres­i­dency as its sup­port­ers wish it had been, rather than the sor­did flop it ac­tu­ally was. But, hav­ing lived in Wash­ing­ton DC for two thrilling years, and held a White House press pass, I find its crack­ling di­a­logue and rapid plot­ting com­pelling de­spite its ob­vi­ous flaws. I have to limit my­self to a max­i­mum of three episodes in a row. DVD, 7 se­ries